The Ghastly Ones / Seeds Of Sin

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All Rise...

The Charge

Madness! Murder! Milligan!

The Case

When seedy shyster Lawyer Dobbs calls the Crenshaw family to his office to
read their deceased dad's long awaited will, the Victorian dressed dollar-holics
bustle and spat their way to the reading. The seemingly ancient ambulance chaser
informs them, formula style, that they must go to the isolated family manor and
spend some quality time with the generally unbalanced staff. The fact that Dobbs
looks like a Judy doll crossed with an Italian widow offers no foreboding to
these financially minded minions. They immediately beat a path to the mansion
where they discover Colin, a retarded hunchback who has the mind of a planter's
wart and the taste for free-range rabbit tartar, and Martha and Hattie, two
maids with anger management issues. The scene is set for a little old dark house
homicide, and as predicted, one by one, the potential estate baiters find
themselves meeting up with inheritance's number one fussbudget, death. After a
little slicing, dicing, mincing, and rinsing, the remaining rats in this
murderous maze think they know from whom the slaughter extols. But paternity
makes for strangling bedfellows as a last minute bombshell turns out to be a
dud, leaving us to ponder just whom The Ghastly Ones were.

Old crone matron Claris Manning, who redefines the word
"crotchety" with every bourbon-fueled blast from her mangled maw, just
can't believe that her ditzy daughter Carol has invited the money hungry members
of her hated family over for a holiday get together. Seems that the wealthy
witch wishes that her offal offspring would simply make like a group of in
testate inheritors and drop dead. No sooner do the bequest buffoons show up at
the ratty old mansion than one by one they proceed to push up some pretty
unpleasant daises. Some are stabbed. Others are electrocuted. And one lucky
lass, the sadism loving Susan, gets a one-time sulfuric acid facial (oddly
enough, her ape-like man friend takes a tap to the cranium with a piece of
floorboard and his head opens like a casaba melon). As our several little
idiotic Indians are reduced to an unlikely few, Carol grows more and more
craven, trying to restart her past adolescent sex acts with bothered brother
Mark. His rejection sends our amiss miss into an infantile rage. And all the
while, shots of completely unrelated two-toned hippies making mattresses mudpies
are inserted into the narrative to give the film some grindhouse Seeds of
Sin.

The Ghastly Ones has a title that should spell suspense and a
promised premise of gore ready to draw its blood-drenched hook into even the
most misgiving fan of exploitation. But the reality is far more redundant and
ridiculous. Andy Milligan's mad movie to murder and millinery is the only horror
film where the aspects of the filmmaking are far more frightening than the
slayings themselves. The first creepy issue is the costume design. The entire
cast walks around in lace collars, crinoline skirts, and numerous petticoats
like this supposed slasher flick is Dickens' Bleak House (just call it
Fortnight the 13th). Next, there is the pre-credits murder sequence,
featuring characters we do not know, a setting we are totally unfamiliar with,
and an umbrella so large and tacky that even Tijuana tourists would avoid it as
vulgar. While the scene has an unnerving effect, it has more to do with that
tasteless parasol and less to do with the eye gouging and leg splitting. And
then there is the gore. Aside from one good head spray toward the end, someone
forgot the Kayo claret for the rest of the Rue Morgue mania. When a so-called
intestinal torture scene has less grue and guts that an episode of The Golden
Girls (and is far less frightening, by the way), you sense the no budget
restrictions could have been convoluted to provide some human heart fuel. While
Milligan's moviemaking is all odd viewpoints and surreal juxtapositions, it just
can't save the sanguine-less story here. A good dose of arterial antics would
have made this maniac movie manageable.

If The Ghastly Ones is a letdown in promise vs. payoff, Seeds of
Sin is a genuinely warped masterwork of misplaced melodrama. So campy that
Boy Scouts are seen circling it for merit badges and filled to bursting with
ludicrous story twists (incest, blood changing), insane classic dialogue
("I love you so much I could kill you"), and perversely unexplainable
subplots (the scheming servants, the slimy abortionist, the psychotic youngest
son) this wild B&W workout showcases a filmmaker of rare resplendent
outrageousness. The cinematic polar opposite—in both image and
imagination—to Ghastly, one can see nearly every John Waters
kitchen sink dragfest floating around in Milligan's salacious stew of strange
camera swirls, unrealistic close-ups and genuinely awkward framing angles. This
is a movie that has to be experienced to be believed, from the muscle magazine
masturbation scene to the Kiss of Death
inspired finale. Even the inserted skin scuffles, blatant in their other actor
aspects, work within the confines of Milligan's misguided vision. These asexual
rest stops give us a chance to turn away from the screen and think about the
over-the-top tantrums and genuinely tawdry tenants of this dysfunctional family
fiesta. In this duo of delirium from the dressmaker turned director,
Seeds bitch-smacks Ghastly and shows that Milligan may just have
been a wrongly mocked defrocked filmmaker. Seeds of Sin is a strange
cinematic sensation.

Along with The Body Beneath, Something Weird Video makes the Milligan
masses happy by digging up and rediscovering these faded films. Unfortunately,
both of these forgotten finds come in buried treasure troubled transfers.
Ghastly Ones has emulsion scratches running through it, solarized colors,
and a heinously bad soundtrack. But just when you think matters can't get any
worse, along comes the jittery, jumpy Seeds to prove that not all
monochrome offerings from SWV are exceptional. Seeds suffers from over
and under exposure, moments of earthquake style jittering, even worse
sonic shrillness (most conversations are buried in distortion), and those
horrible inserted sex scenes (which are blatant in their obtuse black and white
clarity). One can forgive the prints since most of Milligan's movies are
considered lost, but the catawampus creations provided here will test your DVD
dedication.

Thankfully, the bonus material balances out the audio/visual violations
quite nicely. Aside from a standard set of Milligan trailers and a film specific
gallery of exploitation art, there are several of the miscast kernels from
Seeds of Sin's scattered history. First, we get an unfinished coming
attraction for the film that packs a few delightful deleted scenes. Then there
is forty minutes of Milligan's actual workprint of the film, again containing
missing footage and none of the love child carnal cuts. Even fan Christopher
William Koening offers a wonderful, in-depth essay in an included insert. But
the best bit here is the commentary on Ghastly with director Frank
Henenlotter and actor Hal Borske. Starting with their proposition that what you
are about to see is the worst piece of junk either have encountered, this is an
amicable, hilarious, and anecdote-filled detour into the universe of Andy
Milligan movies. Borske is catty and confessional, giving the viewer instant
access to what is was like making these far-out films. Occasionally straying
from the subject at hand, this is still one of the best alternative narrative
tracks Something Weird has put on disc.

The Ghastly Ones / Seeds of Sin may offer two sides of the same
stupid slaughter story, but Andy Milligan's miscreant motion pictures are so
sordid and surreal that they threaten to undermine your entire cinematic ethos.
You'll love them so much that they'll kill you, or at least murder your
mainstream sensibilities.